Several non-profit organizations across Vancouver have received eviction notices this month. Evictions include COPE in Chinatown, VIVO Media Arts in Mount Pleasant, Spartacus Books in Strathcona and The Junction in Gastown. The high-profile evictions point to the deteriorating security of tenure for renters in Vancouver, including non-profits and cultural organizations renting in commercial spaces.
This month’s evictions come as part of a long trajectory of art and social spaces evicted in the city, particularly for organizations with roots in low-income areas facing rapid gentrification. Spartacus Books, based in the DTES area for 40 years, was pushed out from its previous location across from Victory Square due to “staggeringly high rent.” Spartacus was only one of a number of groups pushed out and evicted from the one-block radius of the Woodward’s mega-project, including W2, Red Gate, Dynamo and “151 E Hastings.”
This time around, Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies and a hardware store are being evicted alongside Spartacus Books from their shared building on the 600 block of East Hastings. All three tenants were given eviction notices when the building was recently bought up by an unknown developer. Spartacus has to leave its current location by July 31st, 2013.
Spartacus collective member Allison Barker blames the soaring rents on the city’s recent initiative to rezone the industrial Hastings corridor for Vision-friendly developers like Wall Financial. Only a block away from Spartacus and Dan’s Brewing lies 955 East Hastings, the site of a massive development project by Wall Financial, whose subsidiaries and affiliates donated $200-300K to Vision Vancouver in 2011 alone. The gentrification project, dubbed by community activists “Woodward’s East,” contains three-hundred units of market housing and fifty units of “affordable housing.” The affordable housing will be priced at “market rates,” according to city planners.
Meanwhile a few blocks away from the actual Woodward’s, Gen Why Media recently received an eviction notice for May 31st. The eviction will displace the collective members of The Junction, which includes “a workspace housing 11 people who represent projects, businesses and organizations that are working in the social change sector: community garden development social enterprise, independent media producers, 3 documentary/interactive production companies, animator, activist, writer/journalist, poet/musician and a urban farms researcher.” Filmmaker Daniel Pierce — the founder and lease holder of the space — says in an interview with The Mainlander that for collective spaces like The Junction it is “next to impossible to find anything within the same price range that is able to accommodate a sub-lease situation.” Pierce concludes that “our small community may get broken up, if we are unable to find a space.”
Fiona Rayher is a documentary filmmaker currently based in the Junction space. She is the face behind the award-winning Fractured Land documentary, which follows a Dene warrior from northeastern BC as he takes on the extraction industry in his homeland. Rayher calls the eviction “a shock” and puts her own eviction in context of the Fractured Land project: “we are in the middle of film production. Over the summer, we’ll be moving into post production. So not having a space to edit with festival deadlines coming up is rather terrifying.”
Another member of the space, Tara Mahoney, puts the evictions in the context of gentrification. Mahoney of Gen Why Media tells The Mainlander that the Gastown evictions are due to increasing gentrification in the area, adding that the city needs rent control to protect cultural spaces from land and real estate speculation.
Evictions from Chinatown to Mount Pleasant
COPE, Vancouver’s oldest and only left-wing municipal party, currently has its office at the corner of Main Street and Georgia. The party has been evicted from Chinatown this month, with rents scheduled to double. The soaring rents come in tandem with the development of several condo developments in close proximity, including “The Flats” by Panther Constructors Limited on the East 200 block of Georgia, 611 Main Street by Westbank and 633 Main Street by Bosa’s Blue Sky Properties.
“The Downtown Eastside has been an affordable neighbourhood for decades,” said COPE Executive Director Sean Antrim in a statement to The Mainlander. “Now that the area has been opened to real-estate speculation, all bets are off, and the large real-estate corporations that have the support of City Hall are pushing out existing small businesses, artist spaces, and non-profits that had their offices in there, not to mention low-income residential tenants.”
Antrim added, “There’s no doubt in my mind that our landlord looked across the street at the large Westbank project, and saw an opportunity to make huge profits by kicking us out and waiting for new tenants who can pay a rate that we as an organization cannot afford.” As Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project recently said in an interview with CBC, “you don’t actually have to physically displace an apartment unit. All you have to do is increase the land values and then the forces that cause displacement kick in.”
CCAP estimates that in Chinatown there are approximately 338 welfare rate housing units in private SRO’s that stand to be lost to rent increases. The majority of the housing units cater to low-income Chinese seniors, whose alternative housing options are in significant short supply.
Further south along Main Street, VIVO Media Arts Centre received an eviction notice after 20 years in the same building at 1915 Main Street. The building was recently bought up by an unknown developer and the eviction is due for May 2014. VIVO general manager Emma Hendrix is not surprised: “it has been happening for 15 years and we all knew prior to the Olympics that this whole area that there would be some major changes.”
According to Hendrix, “unless an organization owns a building or rents from another organization, there is no guarantee.” Instead of zeroing in on the need for tenant protections that include all renters, Hendrix is pursuing Waldorf’s model in seeking a state of exception for established artists and cultural organizations. These measures involve new property ownership models or targeted reprieve and arts-specific amnesty from the effects of the housing market. “There are solutions for cultural organizations like VIVO. It can work,” stated Hendrix in a recent interview with the Vancouver Observer.
Over the past year, the Vancouver Renters’ Union has organized with tenants against evictions in several buildings in Mount Pleasant. Renters’ Union organizer Besh Caron told the The Mainlander that “the changes are not inevitable. Actually, the city government and the corporations have to go to a lot of effort to gentrify a neighbourhood and kick people out. The government has to erode hard-fought legislation that protects tenants, and the city has to rezone properties for developers and even offer incentives and tax breaks and the corporations have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to donate to political parties to guarantee their re-zonings. As I see it, it’s just as inevitable that renters will fight back and win real rent control and stability.”
ReidB
May 8, 2013 at 2:43 pm
I thought Spartacus left its Victory Square location because the building burned down, not because it was evicted?
ReidB
May 8, 2013 at 2:45 pm
Haha, nevermind, didn’t see there was a source article.
Matty
May 8, 2013 at 5:38 pm
The only way for renters to win is to abolish the renting of property, period. Land ownership should have never been a job available to the wealthy and has bred inequality. Organizations like the renters union only serve to perpetuate this inequality for future generations.
History has shown us that people are removed from the land they live or work on because they never have a chance to own it’s title deed. Modern day serfdom.
wendy pedersen
May 8, 2013 at 5:57 pm
Bob Rennie bought Ted Harris paint across street from Spartacus. As Robert Fung, Gastown Developer, was quoted recently saying in “Business In Vancouver Magazine”: developers are “pouring money into property regardless of what the current returns are.” All I can say is thanks Vision Vancouver.
Allister Bigrig Parker
May 8, 2013 at 8:02 pm
Nope! The shop burned down in 2004, but then after a load of fundraising reopened on 319 W. Hastings Street (literally right next to the old scorched spot: http://www.kswnet.org/fire/locations-detail.cfm?location=16 ).
Since the fire Spartacus has operated out of 2 locations: the one they’re in now on 684 East Hastings (which they will soon be evicted from) and the one they were in before, which they were -also- forced out of! Yay! Gentrification!
Allister BigRig Parker
May 9, 2013 at 12:19 am
Do you feel the same way about Spartacus? I totally agree with your point, cause ultimately “bigger cages, longer chains” is not the solution, and the private property model of land rights is fucked. However, Spartacus sits in that same uncomfortable place as well, because they’re a store which needs to sell books in order to pay their rent (despite doing so in order to provide free space for radical organizing and resources), and that comes with it’s own set of problems.
I guess I’m wondering how people decide where their boundaries are with this stuff, like… is partaking in the capitalist market & exchanging commodities acceptable, but trying to negotiate with state power for new tenancy laws not? I just find it interesting that some of these organizations get a lot of flak, when really they can all be viewed as “reformist” or engaging in “damage control” to greater/lesser extents.
Either way, not disagreeing with the premise of your argument, but y’know – in practice it just seems like only certain people get called out for what they do, and i wonder why folks are less critical of the tension which -does- exist in other places (like Spartacus)? I’m gonna guess it’s their amazing section of anarchist literature? ;)
SIAVASH
May 9, 2013 at 9:32 am
This the nastiest game of power in the book. Crush your enemy! Ironically, its the so called social forward political party (Vision) who is behind this mess and they are crushing what brought them to power and made them relatively culturally-forward political party in the city. I guess the taste of the condo lobby money has been so delicious that they are going backword and crushing anything culturally relevant in a city with such potential in cultural growth. You shall not manage creativity for it no longer can be called creativity. The same goes for culture and cultural organizations. There is a reason why people like me left the city. I hope that these action will be a seed for a new discent movement in a city where political and social disence is namely unexistence!
thefightingflaneur
May 9, 2013 at 10:25 am
While tragic, is the loss of Spartacus and Dan’s Homebrewing gentrification? I imagine the same tenant that was attacked for gentrifying the area, an organic cosmetics boutique, will also be evicted. So are they victims of gentrification or agents of gentrification? Nobody knows because the definition of gentrification is so loose it can be interpreted either way. This is not to explicate Robertson- who championed the rights of small businesses along the Canada Line. He is a hypocrite in this sense undoubtedly.
So, should there be rent protection for small businesses too? Or just businesses that you agree with? That would mean the much maligned Au Petit Chavignol (which was just evicted/closed) at 800 blocke East Hastings would also be protected. It’s a double edge sword. But isn’t that the paradox inherent in participating in capitalism while at the same time condemning it?
One side note, the Red Gates who were evicted from West Hastings is now located in the 800 block of East Hastings. One could easily say “oh now the artists and hipsters (http://downtowneast.net/2013/04/22/ward/) are here to gentrify the place”. Again, exposing the nature of gentrification as a vague, undefinable entity.
Also, may I ask why The Crying Room is in the picture that accompanies this article?
thefightingflaneur
May 9, 2013 at 10:30 am
Also I don’t know why WordPress used my avatar as an alias, but in the interest of full disclosure, the above comment is by Sean Orr of fancy restaurants blog Scout Magazine. Also i work in a super fancy restaurant and live in a condo in Gastown that my immigrant parents bought for me and my brother in 2002.
kim hearty
May 9, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Ok, first: land ownership is not “a job.”
Second, no one will ever be equal under a colonial property rights system. People are not displaced “because they never have a chance to own it’s title deed” but only wherever they have been unable to defend their land against governments’ and capitalists’ brutal force.
Third, when we become sufficiently organized, renters can and will abolish capitalism. Organizing renters and taking on landlords as much as possible just to defend our homes and livelihoods in the meantime is an important step towards total liberation.
See you in the streets (or not at all…)
alex
May 10, 2013 at 2:36 am
while there are moments when the ‘victims’ and ‘agents’ of gentrification are fairly clear, i don’t think it always needs to be conceived of in such terms. the rent-gap is generally understood to be a structural problem. folks can participate in driving up rent in a neighbourhood, and still suffer from this phenomenon themselves simultaneously or subsequently. the tendency to exempt oneself is arguably one of the most prominent means by which the problems are perpetuated–and indeed exceptional interventions often don’t do much to mitigate the larger structural problem either. an art space seeking special protection is absolutely not equivalent to an art space recognizing that, at least to some degree, their space problem is shared with most people.
That doesn’t mean that all spaces and agents experience this problem evenly. Nor does it mean that they don’t partake in wildly divergent spatial politics–inclusions, exclusions, etc. In Vancouver this unevenness isn’t especially subtle. Nor is it inevitable or natural. Even the practice of capitalism itself is socially constructed and quite specific in the instance of Vancouver.
Sean Orr
May 10, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Oh, it’s structural. I see.
Gabriel
May 10, 2013 at 6:03 pm
Hey Sean,
There is a simple definition of gentrification – when existing communities are displaced due to economic forces, backed by political and physical power. That usually means poor, low income or even middle class people who do not own property vacate the buildings, homes and neighborhoods that they occupy out of financial necessity. That necessity comes about when a neighborhood is intentionally re-zoned by City Hall, purchased and developed by corporate property owners, and systematically policed in such a way that its previous residents feel compelled to leave either by choice or by lack of choice.
You sound a little defensive – maybe for good reason since you seem to know that “Condos” and “fancy restaurants” get a lot of flack on this blog. Still, is it that hard to imagine that things can be complicated? That people can be perpetrators and victims at the same time? Collectives like those involved with Spartacus and the former Red Gate understand this and have conversations about this all the time. Perhaps the Cheese Shop does too, though it’s hard to imagine its the same conversation.
We all know that most people tend to blame gentrification on consumer choices like the ones you allude to. To be fair, our consumer choices do have effects. Au Petit Chavignol (who own their building) did close their restaurant, as did the the the cosmetics place in the Heatley Block next to Spartacus, but they closed because they weren’t making enough money, either because customers from the neighborhood were consciously avoiding them or because their targeted customers don’t live anywhere near them and didn’t feel like making the trek. Either way, its evidence that the goods and services they offered were totally inappropriate for a low income neighborhood like the DTES/Strathcona/Oppenheimer.
We all know that young entrepreneurs, service industry workers and their workplaces, artists and artist spaces and other businesses that attempt to serve them are often seen as the front line for gentrification. They are, but we should take the metaphor seriously. They’re cannon fodder. They’re the more mobile, more adaptable and privileged folks who are reasonably gravitating to places that can accommodate them as renters and workers. They’re the ones who are the first to take a room in a house or hotel that’s been flipped because it’s still “affordable”, or else open a business because they can afford the lease “here” and not “there”. The truth is they’re place-holders. They’re like the security guard who protects the empty lot while the property’s owner is sitting, biding their time before they build. The only difference is that they’ll pay rent instead of demand a wage for guarding that developer’s property. The half block of design studios that Bob Rennie is renting on Hastings by the Astoria is a perfect example. Who can look at that building and not see a giant hideous condo in its inteded future.
By NOT refusing to play a part in the process – by shopping, working and living in recently or soon to be gentrified places – of course you become complicit to a degree. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s all about you, your condo, your job or where you go dancing. The point that we miss when we get into an argument about whether a book store or a cheese shop or an art gallery is doing more damage is that the effects of gentrification are being decided long before you or anyone else buys that condo. It’s being decided by City Hall and the developers and property owners who bribe them with thousands and thousands of dollars in “donations”. By the time low to middle income people are deciding whether or not to move into a recently or soon to be gentrified neighborhood, there’s already someone raising a wine glass and toasting the millions of dollars they’ve made off of a rezoning of a property that they bought for a steal. Perhaps at your fancy restaurant.
Renoviction Row
May 11, 2013 at 2:34 pm
“Also, may I ask why The Crying Room is in the picture that accompanies this article?”
Who knows? Albeit, it’s too bad an image like this wasn’t available at the time of the article’s release: http://i.imgur.com/i4SKxoU.jpg?1 …sums up pretty well what’s going on, like newly renovated white box sandwiched between two well established operations, both being booted out to make way for more uppity clientele on Hastings.
Sean Orr
May 12, 2013 at 11:30 am
I believe your entire argument can be deconstructed in the first sentence. These are businesses not residences. Also, a cosmetic shop closes down because the goods they are selling are inappropriate and can therfore no longer make money, but Spartacus closed down because it was a personal attack on their politics rights? Pfft. It’s the same process and anything else is moral relativism.
Sean Orr
May 12, 2013 at 11:33 am
How can you say people are being displaced, when an example used in the article of gentrification (Red Gates, due to Woodwards) has now moved into the area you are saying is displacing people? Which one is it? Are people being displaced or are their new opportunities for cultural organizations to take root?
Gabriel
May 12, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Hi Sean,
I agree, my entire argument rests upon my first sentence – “when existing communities are displaced due to economic forces, backed by political and physical power.”
“Communities” is a controversial term in its own right, and maybe I should just say “Neighborhoods”, but when I use that word I mean to include businesses AND residences. I’d also include the relationships that form on the side walk, in the parks and in non-business and non-residential social gathering spots that are all likewise affected by Gentrification. People are not just what they buy, and homes and businesses are not just empty spaces filled with stuff. There are relationships formed by all of the things I’ve listed above and when people are displaced because their businesses are closed, their homes evicted or their streets and parks made unsafe because of police harassment, those relationships are disrupted and sometimes destroyed.
And yes, this article isn’t talking about residences, but it also isn’t juar talking about “businesses”. It’s talking about places which serve multiple purposes and where social relationships, political organizing and cultural production are essential purposes for being. The whole point is that Gentrification is not JUST a housing problem.
Last thing… there is a difference between the closure of Spartacus and Bioethique (the cosmetics store). For one thing, as a business, Spartacus has been thriving and are only having to move because their property was sold to a developer who is terminating their lease and TRIPLING the rent for storefronts in the Heatley Block. Bioethique was not evicted, nor did they leave simply because their rent is being tripled. They’ve moved to West 4th so it would seem that rent is not the central issue. If you can’t see the differences in their situation than I don’t know that gentrification will ever be more than “a vague, undefinable entity” for you.
Hope this is answering some questions.
Best
Gabriel
Gabriel
May 12, 2013 at 2:01 pm
“Are people being displaced or are their new opportunities for cultural organizations to take root?”
Like I said before: “is it that hard to imagine that things can be complicated? That people can be perpetrators and victims at the same time? Collectives like those involved with Spartacus and the former Red Gate understand this and have conversations about this all the time.”
I’ll say it again in your words: it’s possible for people to be displaced while at the same time opening new opportunities for cultural organizations to take root.
Some people call that a “contradiction” but that’s different than “hypocrisy”. It seems like you’re determined to make a clear good guy/bad guy situation out of something that is way more complicated than that. At the same time, there ARE people who are perpetrators but NOT victims. The corporations, millionaire developers and city politicians responsible for gentrification will never suffer the consequences of gentrification. If they’re victims its in a “karmic” sense, but certainly not in the sense that small entrepreneurs, renters, artist spaces and the like are often the victims of the same processes that make it possible for them to acquire temporary residence in the first place.
Sean Orr
May 12, 2013 at 2:11 pm
This all just reaffirms my point that the term gentrification is a massive catch-all for class based economic redistribution. It includes sensitive urban revitalization and wholesale redevelopment alike. Perhaps the term needs qualifiers such as “checked and unchecked”. To me, immediately screaming ‘gentrification’ is akin to a right winger screaming ‘tax dollars’. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. That doesn’t mean the loss of Spartacus, Ted Harris Paints, Dan’s Homebrewing isn’t tragic, I just think it needs to be examined with nuance and pragmatism.
Allison
May 12, 2013 at 4:40 pm
As a Spartacus collective member, this sentence for me sums it up:
“And yes, this article isn’t talking about residences, but it also isn’t juar talking about “businesses”. It’s talking about places which serve multiple purposes and where social relationships, political organizing and cultural production are essential purposes for being. The whole point is that Gentrification is not JUST a housing problem.”
This is something the Spartacus regulars (most of whom are low-income residents) have mentioned as a concern since the renoviction news came up, cause they know that whoever rents out the space next will (probably) not let them use the washroom, or provide free internet/phones, or will create a space where they can hang out and not be -expected- to buy something…
What’s happening is gentrification, because these spaces will be made more exclusive, if not outright hostile to our neighbors. Even for myself, it’s fucked up knowing that i may not be seeing these people anymore on a regular basis, because who knows where we’ll end up, and all because some developers want to capitalize, which requires forcing out the people who have been there for YEARS.
But yeah, seems Sean doesn’t understand things can be complicated. Spartacus tries to smooth over some of our contradictions (like we’re non-profit, ALL of the collective members are volunteers, and we offer free services to the neighborhood – paid for using the books we sell), but we’re not perfect, and don’t claim to be either. However, i can say for a fact that our intentions down there are REALLY different than a high-end boutique designed for private profit. If Sean can’t see the difference between Spartacus and a place like Au Petit Chavignol, I’m gonna guess he’s stuck in such intense binary thinking that there’s really no point even trying to have a discussion with ’em.
Sean Orr
May 12, 2013 at 11:37 pm
Nice try, but you are the people using binary thinking- status quo is good and change is bad. You are the ones using moral relativism not me. You are the ones judging which businesses should be at any specific geographic location, not me. I indeed am the one pointing out the grey, not confused by it.
Dave
May 15, 2013 at 11:25 am
I feel like this article and thread is a call to action. Thanks everyone.